46 I'ransactions. 



portion on the left. Unfortunately the rock is greatly broken, 

 on tlie southern side especially, and all the higher portion — on 

 the left in the plate — very much obliterated. Of the two 

 upright grooves marked DD I am inclined to be doubtful — the 

 only fact in favour of their artificiality being that the shorter one 

 does not continue beyond the cup. It may, therefore, like the 

 very distinctly-cut groove T, be considered as a stem of our 

 supposed tree. Of all the rest of the design, the main stem T, 

 the ground line GG, and the groups of cups and ovoid hollows on 

 either side of the stem, there can be no doubt on the point of 

 artificiality. They are perfectly clear cut, deep, and unweathered ; 

 and each cup as well as the grooves are full of unusually -distinct 

 and decided tool marks. Indeed, so decided are these that they 

 suggest the only doubt in the matter — were these cups and grooves 

 not cut by something harder than the flints of our pre-historic 

 forefathers'? There are two very short scratches on the lower 

 side of the ground line GG, one of which has suggested the notion 

 that it was once continued and formed the corresponding arm of 

 a cross. I cannot think that either of these marks has anything 

 to do with the design at all ; they are much more like marks 

 made by the teeth of a harrow. On the same line of rock surface 

 the following sculptui-es are found : — -A group of concentric rings 

 with central cup, the largest ring bein^ twenty inches in diameter 

 and the cup one inch. The rings are five in number, and are 

 much weather-worn. A little to the north of this is a wonder- 

 fully fresh and deep cup two inches in diameter, having four 

 rings round it, all very clear ; one of these rings being so much 

 deeper than the space next the cup groove fS to make it look like 

 a ridge above the surface of the rock. This is a rather uncommon 

 form. I have records of only two others at all similar; one is on 

 the Kist-cover at Bleaton-Hallett, Blairgowrie, and the other is 

 mentioned by Mr Jolly in his paper on " The cup-marked stones 

 in the neighbourhood of Inverness." Near this remarkable cup 

 are two plain cups, and numerous small indistinct cups ; and at a 

 few feet away fragments of a different arrangement can be traced 

 composed of sets of one large and two small cups, and of ordinary 

 single cups and rings, and also of rings of cups, like those above 

 described, surrounding a central cup.* 



* While preparing tliis I hear to-day (14t]i .September, 1887) of the 

 discovery of yet more and more peculiar petroglyphs on the same piece of 

 rock at High Banks by Mr Horuel and Mr Tliompson. 



